


The Warmth of the Pyre

by Smiling_Penelope



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alina is a badass freedom fighter who takes no shit, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But no PLOT spoilers from Six of Crows, Drüskelle!Mal, F/M, Fjerda, Fjerdan!Alina, Fjerdan!Mal, Pretty much every Fjerdan world building spoiler from Six of Crows, The Darkling will still find a way to manipulate Alina somehow (of course)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-01-27 04:17:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12573520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smiling_Penelope/pseuds/Smiling_Penelope
Summary: What if Alina had been born Fjerdan and not Ravkan? If she grew up on stories of the sins of witches and played pretend Drüskelle soldiers with Mal?What would happen then, when she discovers a shameful, but brilliant power inside of her? What would she think of herself? Who would she turn to?Where could she run?





	1. Prologue - The Queen of Lights

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning this fic will be filled with heaps of Fjerdan culture a.k.a. major world-building spoilers from Six of Crows. There are no plot spoilers though.

The girl shrugged her arms against the intense chill of the Fjerdan winter night. Her white dress was lined with warm elk fur and the red sash around her waist tightly held the fabric to her. But although traditional, the festive clothing did little to stop the wind from biting into her. The crown of lingonberry twigs and candles that rested on her head was also of no use, the candles long snuffed out.

It was the Winter Solstice, _Sëng Lucia’s_ celebration. The girl had been chosen to be the town’s _Lussibrud_ and she was weary from carrying around her basket of saffron buns to distribute to every household. The basket was empty now, but it still weighed against her thin arms.

At the beginning of the day the girl had been excited to be the _Lussibrud_. For as long as she could remember she wanted to wear Lucia’s blazing crown. She couldn’t have imagined just how heavy and itchy the thing would be or how much work it would be to traipse around the town all day long.

The _Lussibruds_ before her had always made it look so easy, smiles as bright as the candles on their crown. And as she moved clumsily through the knee-deep snow the girl vowed to never be a _Lussibrud_ ever again. The job was decidedly not as glamorous at it had been made out to be.

It didn’t help that the Winter Solstice also happened to be her birthday. In the past that meant that she always got an extra saffron bun from the smiling _Lussibrud_. Today it meant that she barely had time to eat one bun in between her duties.

So now that she finally had a moment to herself she decided that she wanted a good look at the night sky. The girl made her way up the tallest hill near her sleeping town. She technically wasn’t allowed to be out this late at night, but it was her birthday wasn’t it? So how much trouble could she get in? The woman she called mother could never be too mad at her on this special day.

Besides, she doubted that there would be any witches out on as lovely as a night as this. The stars shined brightly and a crescent moon hung low in the sky. Their light comforted the girl. In the far North of Fjerda, the winter nights dominated the day until there were only precious few hours of sunlight to cling to. If it weren’t for her birthday and _Sëng Lucia’s_ celebration, the girl didn’t think that she would be able to stand the long winter. She was like a summer rose, blooming in the sunshine and withering with the winter’s chill.

She crested the hill and let the glow of night wash over her. It greeted her like a familiar friend and her entire body seemed to sag with relief. She immediately decided that this had been the right choice, frost-bitten nose, potentially irate mother, and all.

With her eyes closed and face tilted to the sky the girl thought of the warmth of summer and the beauty of her candlelight crown. In her soft contentment she did not notice the pair of footsteps that followed hers in the snow.

A boy had followed her up the hill, a sticky saffron bun clutched in one hand. The boy was a friend, practically a brother who lived in the house next to hers. He had been the only one to notice the tightness around her eyes when she smiled and the way she had hastily devoured a bun as she walked in between two of the houses. The boy knew it was her birthday and he wanted her to have her second bun.

He had also wanted to protect her. Even on a holy night, the woods could still be dangerous. He was worried about witches finding her in the dark.

The boy thought he knew everything about witches. How to find them, how to capture them, and how to slay them if necessary. He had listened, perhaps too closely, to all of the stories the man he called father had to tell him. And when he grew up he wanted to be part of the _Drüskelle_ , the bravest of the Fjerdan heroes, the witch hunters.

When the boy would play he would pretend to be one. Together he and the girl would forage in the bushes, hoping to catch a witch by surprise. They would spend countless hours building tiny fake pyres and imaging the cheers of the crowd as they brought a witch through the town square to stand trial.

So the boy thought he would be ready when he found a witch.

But when he crested the hill behind the girl, the saffron bun he had brought for her fell from his hands. The hours and the cold had turned it hard so that when it fell it was completely submerged in the snow, immediately forgotten.

“Alina? What- what are you _doing?_ ” The boy asked the girl in a horrified voice.

The girl’s eyes jerked open and snapped to the boy in surprise. Her thoughts of summer sun and blazing crowns left her and with it the hilltop grew dimmer. For the girl had been glowing, producing a soft golden light that clung to her skin, without realizing it.

She looked at her hands, still slightly twinkling with faint spots of light, and answered truthfully. “I don’t know, but whatever it was felt so lovely.”

As if encouraged by her words, her hands started to glow again with purpose. The girl turned to the boy and couldn’t see the horror on his face past her own joy.

“It feels like sunshine, Mal! Come feel!” She beckoned him over with a wide grin.

Dumbfounded, the boy’s feet moved him unconsciously until he stood in her light. He reached a tentative hand to the edge of the glow and found that she was right. It did feel like sunshine.

“I’m just like Lucia!” She exclaimed.

For _Sëng Lucia_ had another name and her celebration didn’t fall on the Winter Solstice for no reason. She had the power to turn the tides of the long Fjerdan winter and bring the light of the day to renewed victory. They called her Queen of the Lights and celebrated her with a crown of blazing candles and evergreen lingonberry twigs.

In that moment the girl could not know that she would come to collect multiple names herself. Witch, Sun Summoner, _Vår Frälsare_ , _Sëng_ Alina, _Sankta_ Alina, _Sol Koroleva_ , _Sol Drüsje_ , and even _Sëng Lucia_ by some.

The girl set down her empty basket and took the crown from her head. She furrowed her brow and stuck out her tongue a little in concentration until the candles in her crown looked like they were lit again. Her delighted laughter floated through the air, but her companion's mouth was set in a grim line.

~ ~ ~ ~

The boy thought he knew what he would do when he found a witch.

The girl didn’t think a witch would be out on a night so lovely.

The boy and the girl were wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, well I know I shouldn't be starting _another_ grisha fic when I already have 3 unfinished ones going, but here we are...
> 
> Sëng = Saint in Fjerdan
> 
> Fjerda is based on Scandinavia like Ravka is based on Russia. Saint Lucy's or (Lucia's) Day is a Swedish holiday celebrated on December 13th which was the shortest day of the year (winter solstice) on the Julian calendar. The calendar changed to Gregorian, but the date didn't move. (Ummm why? That makes no symbolic sense...) The stories say that the Romans killed Lucia for bringing food to persecuted Christians hiding in the catacombs of Rome. Lucia wore candles on her head to light her way as she carried the forbidden food in her arms. (Sounds like a high risk of molten wax to the eyes to me, but okay.)
> 
> Anyways, if you are as excited as I am to voyage on this Fjerdan adventure, feel free to comment down below! :)


	2. The Witch Hunter

He backed me up against the last place I wanted to be. I wished for a rock. I wished for a hard place. I wished for a frozen lake, a raging fire, a dark forest, an endless desert, a sea of daggers, or a steep cliff’s edge. Anything but this. Anything but _Avgrund_.

Of all of the sins that witches had committed there was none to rival _Avgrund_. It was the greatest perversion of the natural world. A swirling abyss of darkness riddled with creatures hungry for the flesh of men. And I could practically feel its presence breathing down my neck.

The Ravkans called it the Shadow Fold or the Unsea. Names which had never sounded all that threatening to me. Especially for a deadly swath of ruined land that had severed their country from its only coastline and left it landlocked.

I had heard rumors that they still tried to cross it from time to time. I guessed that they had to if they wanted to keep some semblance of trade and unity between the two halves of their filthy country. Even if the price of crossing was as heavy as the lives of their men and women.

The Fjerdans called it the _Avgrund_ , the abyss, when we dared to talk about it all. But most of the time we just ignored its existence altogether. Its northern tip crossed our southern border, the one we shared with Ravka. Unlike our neighbors though, we never dared to voyage across it or even go near it. There had once been a direct road from the capital of Djerholm to Halhend, but _Avgrund_ had slice right through it leaving it long deserted for a different, more scenic route.

It wasn’t just the road that was abandoned though. Any towns and homes within a few miles of the swirling darkness had long been deserted in the largest exodus in Fjerdan history. Nobody wanted to live in a place where even the barest smudge of haze could be seen on the horizon.

I knew that _I_ wouldn’t want to live in its shadow. I had only had a week of hiding near it and I already wanted to crawl out of my skin and boil it in a vat of kvas.

It was creepy.

The area surrounding the darkness was heavily wooded and it seemed like any available surface was covered with moss. Despite that, I had only seen or heard a handful of animals in the past few days. With no hunters in the wood, they should have been bountiful and bold. The forest around the abyss _should_ have been perfect for them, but it seemed that only the flora part of nature thrived here. The fauna knew better.

Nature had taken back any man-made structures leaving only rotted husks of abandoned buildings. It would have been warmer to have taken shelter in one of them, even the houses with only two walls remaining. But I had given any structure I had found a wide birth. This area may not quite be a tomb, but it was not a place for the living either.

I wasn’t as superstitious as most good Fjerdans. I never spit three times if a black cat crossed my path, I couldn’t be bothered to tap a doorknob twice before turning it, and I most certainly wouldn’t turn around and find a new path if there was a cracked stone in my way. But even I couldn’t bring myself to impose upon these ghostly dwellings.

In fact, it was a mistake for me to have come near _Avgrund_ at all. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. It should have been easy to hide where no one else dared to go. I doubted that anyone had stood where I now hid in over a hundred years. But, I should have known that he would follow me, even here.

I could never truly escape from Mal, not even if I wanted to.

And if I was being honest, I didn’t.

“I know you’re here. It’s no use hiding from me.” The voice I loved over all others, even my own, called to me from only a few yards away. It was so familiar and comforting, even with its harsh edge, and it was all I could do not to give myself up then and there. I wanted to run to him and bury my face into his warm chest. I wanted to trace the wrinkles of his hands and feel the grain of his stubbly chin on my own cheek. I wanted to cry out all of these years I had lived without out him. I wanted…

Too many things that I could never have.

My fingers were stiff with cold, but I just clenched the knife in my hand even tighter. I knew I could never use it against him, but I also knew that he thought I would. It was like holding an empty gun, nobody ever expected it to be unloaded. So it was just as threatening either way.

I just wished that I knew where he was. We were in the thick of the abandoned forest, dead leaves littering every inch of the ground, and I still couldn’t hear his footsteps. It was like he was walking on air and I was pretty sure he was regulating the volume of his voice to confuse me.

And I was an idiot hiding in a bush. If I so much as breathed too hard, the leaves around me would rustle. I was stuck, but I was also invisible. It wasn’t just the noisy leaves that shielded me from view, I was also bending the light away from myself. The illusion of invisibility was a bit patchy, but with the confusion of leaves around me no one should be able to see me. And that was a trick that even Mal didn’t know I had.

So I was hoping that if I could just stay still enough, he might pass me by, maybe even assume that I had doubled back. Mal may be a fantastic tracker, but I doubted he could track what he couldn’t see.

But it seemed that Mal also had new tricks under his sleeve.

It was about ten feet away from my bush when I knew that he had found me for certain. Because ten feet was when I could fully make out the squint of his striking blue eyes and the slight purse of his lips, the look he always got before he he got his catch.

Run. I needed to run, but where? I couldn’t run any closer to _Avgrund_ and I couldn’t run towards Mal. So my only option was traveling north or south along the ragged edges of the inky darkness.

I picked north. I was already backed up against _Avgrund_ and I didn’t want to get any closer to Ravka as well. So I set off an intense flash of lingering light in as large of a radius as I could manage to buy myself more time and distance.

I shot up from my squatted position and started to run. I tried to ignore the screaming protest of my stiff legs and the sharp sting of autumn air in my lungs. But in the end it was useless. Even when we were children, our legs almost equal in length, he had beaten me in every footrace we had ever had. And this was no different.

He was on me in an embarrassingly short amount of time, I could still see my stupid bush out of the corner of my eye. I had no idea why I had thought I would be able to get anywhere.

Mal’s fingers were a painful vise on my shoulder and I was certain that they would make distinct bruises there in the morning... If I was still alive by then.

“ _Sten_.” He commanded as he grabbed me by the shoulder to hold me in place.

As fast as I could, I thrust my knife towards him, hoping that he would let go of me to avoid its swing.

He caught my hand easily and twisted my fingers painfully until the knife fell from my hand. I cried out, but he just gripped me tighter as he forced my arms behind my back. One of my shoulders creaked and popped in protest.

“I finally caught you, _witch_.” I could feel the brush of his short beard as he spat the words into my ear.

 _Oh. No more stubble,_ I thought to myself dumbly. The last time I had seen him, he had been clean-shaven. So that means…

The reality of everything was like a punch to my gut. Only the fully initiated soldiers of the _Drüskelle_ were allowed to grow their beards. That meant he had earned a place among their ranks. He was truly a witch hunter now and I was sure that he would be the best one they’d ever had, if he wasn’t already. The pain of the realization was greater than his forceful grip ever could be.

“No,” I whispered.

“Oh yes,” He growled, thinking that I was denying his capture of me. But I had really been mourning the loss of another piece of his innocence. I had heard rumors of promising new recruit and the things he had done. I knew for sure now that person was Mal.

“And what will you do to me now that you have me?” I tried to keep the fear and panic out of my voice as I spoke, but I knew that he could hear them anyways. He knew me too well. “Will you put me on the pyre yourself? Or will you let someone else have the pleasure of murdering me?”

His grip on me tightened and I bit my lip to keep my ragged sob inside of myself. I was pretty sure that he had dislocated my shoulder and the sharp pain was agonizing.

“It’s not murder if you are guilty, now is it?” The way he held me caused his voice to tickle my ear and if he hadn’t been wrenching my arms out of their sockets, the backwards embrace might have been romantic. “I will bring you to stand a fair trial, not that you deserve one.”

I gave a bitter laugh. There was no such thing as a fair trial for witches. We were guilty from the moment of birth. What he really meant was that I would be at least be tested before they got out the flint and steel. The Fjerdan’s only kindness was making sure that no one who wasn’t actually a witch was sent to die.

“You know I’ll be found guilty for sure, so why even bother with this farce? Why not kill me now, _Drüskelle_?” I spat the word out as well. If he was going to call me a witch, then I wasn’t going to use his name either.

There was a long moment of silence. Long enough for me to notice that my knife hadn’t fallen far from us, only a few feet away. There wasn’t much I could do about it, but maybe if there was a moment of distraction, a second of lost concentration, I might be able to grab it…

“Why did you do it?” He was suddenly whispering, so low that if his lips weren’t at my ear, I might not have heard him.

The softness of his voice knocked on a room of my heart that I had shuttered and boarded away in these past years of running from his kind. Had I always been so weak to this voice?

“Why did I do what?” I was almost too afraid to ask, worried that one wrong move would mean I’d never hear that soft voice again. But I really couldn’t begin to guess at which transgression he was referring to.

Was he asking why I ran? Why I fought? Why I hid? Did he wonder why I had done everything in my power to undermine his fellow soldiers?

Because in all of the years I had spent stuck to his side playing at _Drüskelle_ with him, I had learned more than anyone ever intended. It wasn’t just that I was a witch. I was also a girl. And little girls weren’t allowed to dream of fighting to serve their country. We were supposed _support_. Cook, clean, be good daughters and sisters and wives.

But I had been more stubborn than any good Fjerdan girl should be. And oh, I had _learned_.

I might not be _Drüskelle_ , but that didn’t mean I wasn’t a witch hunter myself. I knew to look for the miracles and follow the bedtime stories. I knew where they hid, because it was where I hid myself. I could predict where they would run, because it was where I wanted to go as well.

But when I found them, my fellow Fjerdans born different, I didn’t kill them or give them away, I helped them and they helped me. So I had done many things, and not just for myself, that had the _Drüskelle_ nipping at my ankles as I ran.

But I could not have prepared myself for the actual question Mal presented to me.

“Why did you lie to me?” He said and there was a break in his words that mirrored my heart.

“I have _never_ lied to you.”

“You’ve lied to me every second I’ve known you!” He gave a harsh laugh and his grip on me tightened. White hot pain blinded my senses and I couldn’t help but cry out this time.

“You’ve known all along what you were and you lied to me about it. Lied to everyone! Your own mother and father even! Do you know that Ansa still writes to me every fortnight? Oh she doesn’t talk about you, she knows better, but the pages are always smudged and wrinkled with tears. You did that. _You._ ”

His voice was growing louder, his grip stronger with every word. I wanted to say, ‘ _Good. Let her cry, she was never really my mother anyways.’_ But it was all I could do not to vomit from the pain. His fingers weren’t wrapped around my neck, but the agony from my shoulder was a tight noose cutting off my air supply.

“You tangled us all up in your lies and deceit and made us l-love you.” There was just the slightest hint of a stutter over the word ‘love’. “I knew you were cruel with your witchcraft, but I thought that even you would have the decency to admit to the truth when it was staring you in the face.”

His grip loosened enough for me to pull in a gasping breath and he continued, but all of the anger seemed to leave him, replaced with a hoarse plea instead. “Just admit it, Alina. Admit that you lied to me.”

My name on his lips caused that barricaded door in my heart to fly open. Although if I was being honest, it had never properly shut.

“Mal,” His name came out as a croak, my voice raspy from crying, “If I told you that I had lied to you all this time then _that_ would be my first falsehood. I can’t admit it, because I never-”

With a precise, fluid motion he twisted my shoulder and flung me to the ground. I thought I might pass out from the pain of it and for a moment I was certain that he had truly ripped it from socket, but the pain started to lessen and I realized that he had put it back in place instead. I shrugged it as gently as I could and still winced from the pain, but I was just glad that I could move it.

Mal glared at me, but I continued on from my new position on the forest floor, “I can’t admit it, because _you_ were the one who lied to _yourself._ You knew what I was the exact moment that _I knew_ all those years ago. Don’t you remember what you said to me then?”

My voice took on a mockingly high pitched tone of a child. “You can’t be a witch, Alina! Witches are evil and you’re not! You’re something else. A wood sprite maybe! You have to be!”

He stopped looking at me while I talked, maybe he couldn’t bear to. It hurt, but it was the distraction I had been waiting for. Mal had thrown me in the opposite direction of the knife, but I lunged for it anyways.

I was too slow.

Of course I was too slow. That was why he was comfortable letting go of me, because he knew that I could never move faster than him.

 _Idiot_ , I chastised myself. I should have used my light, but months of favoring my knife over my true gift had left me rusty. Even around other witches I had avoided doing anything with light that couldn’t be passed off as fire. Calling the light to myself had always been a very cautious, purposeful decision. I didn’t have the luxury of reflexively reaching for it like I would my dagger.

And now he held my wrists tightly with one hand and held my own knife to my neck with the other.

“I don’t even know why I tried.” He practically growled.

“Because you aren’t like them. You can dress up in that black and silver uniform or grow your beard as long as you want, but at the end of the day you’re still playing pretend. You will never really be like them.”

I could see the way my words cut into him, even though they weren’t meant as abuse. I wished that he could see that. I ached for him to understand that my perceived insult was actually the highest compliment and bestowal of trust I could give. But from the way his fingers curled around the handle of my knife, I could tell that he couldn’t see anything past his own prejudice. 

“I could slice you open right now.” He threatened and I knew he thought he could, but I still doubted that he would. Even though his grip shifted on the handle, the blade stayed perfectly in place, not even touching me yet. So I leaned in, letting the cold tip of it press against my skin.

“Better this than the pyre.”

I could feel a small, warm trickle of blood pool, then spill over the edge of the knife. Mal’s eyes traced the the trickle down my neck and into the the collar of my shirt.

Suddenly the hatred in his eyes left and his face was almost expressionless as he lowered the knife. “This isn’t why I’m here. I didn’t come all this way to argue with you.”

“Wha-?” My mouth gaped a little with confusion.

“ _Tig_.” He cut me off with a command to be silent. “You need to leave Fjerda.”

“And go where?” I pressed a hand to my throat to wipe at the blood and almost laughed at the idea.

“I said _be quiet_! You are going to leave this country now and never come back. If you do, I’ll hunt you down again and kill you.”

I opened my mouth to ask more questions, but the dead look in his eye shut me up.

“Leave for Ravka now, go through _Avgrund_ , and I’ll let you live.”

As if in agreement, the wind picked up a little, pointing us to the dark abyss. I couldn’t help myself, I shuddered. “No.”

“You have no choice.”

“You won’t kill me. You can’t.”

He canted his head to one side and his eyes were shadowed by the shade of one of the last tree this close to the darkness. “Maybe, maybe not. But _they_ are coming, and they won’t give you the choice.”

My body turned cold. So that was the reason. The threat had never been Mal, it was his organization. But even still…

“Not Ravka. And not through _Avgrund_.” I insisted. “Anywhere else-”

“No.” He cut me off and with almost no exertion he started to drag me closer to the hazy shadows. “This is the offer and you will take it.”

I started to struggle in earnest. I set my feet in the earth causing pine needles to pool around my ankles. I tried to tug my wrists free, ignoring the fresh tears of pain in my eyes as my shoulder strained against him. It wasn’t working though, and my panic started to mount.

“Please, Mal. Anywhere but Ravka! Anywhere but _Avgrund!_ ” I begged him, but he continued to pull me by my wrists. I became increasingly desperate with every dragging step towards _Avgrund_. There was a creeping feeling of wrongness spreading over my skin, worse than anything I had ever felt in the past week.

 “Please. Please, no. You know what they did. I can’t- I- I-. The dark- _Please_.” I was sobbing now.

There was no fighting him. Mal was a young man in his prime. Tall, even by Fjerdan standards, and fit from training. And I was a malnourished young woman whose bones poked out awkwardly from under her skin. I might be proficient with a knife after all of this time, but against his brute strength I was lost.

“ _They killed your parents too!”_ I screamed the words and he finally stopped. My breath was coming in quick pants. “Or had you forgotten?”

Mal remained as silent and still as stone so I clung to the the subject. “You would send me to that country of barbarians? Of murderers?”

A wolf cried in the distance and I stilled as well.

The _Drüskelle_.

‘ _They are coming.’_

I felt something brush along my ankles and when I looked down I saw that the shadows were starting to collect there, cold and persistent. When had that happened? We hadn’t stepped into _Avgrund_ yet. I was sure that we had stopped a few paces from it. Had it moved? The thought was sickening.

“They’ll kill me too if they find us here together,” Mal said.

My head snapped up. And then Mal pushed me into the darkness.

The last thing I saw before the blackness consumed me was the conflicted look in the Drüskelle’s beautiful blue eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that there aren't a huge amount of typos in this! It took me a lot longer to write than I thought it would and I just wanted to post it already! lol
> 
> I also hope that the word _Avgrund_ wasn't too annoying to read instead of The Fold or Unsea. It's Swedish for abyss. It won't be used quite as much throughout the rest of the fic as we move into Ravka.
> 
> Anyways, let me know what you think of this fic so far in the comments down below! <3


	3. Sand, Darkness, and Me

My hands burned, rubbed raw by the coarse sand of _Avgrund_. I had fallen on them repeatedly in my panicked escape and each time the grit of the sand had seemed to wear away another layer of my skin. But even as I ran blind in the darkness it seemed like a better alternative to the _Drüskelle_ catching me.

When I had begged Mal, pleaded with him, insisted that anything would be better than _Avgrund_ , I hadn’t taken into consideration just how much I wanted to live. It was all well and good to say “ _Better this than the pyre”_ with a knife to my throat that was so sharp it hardly even smarted as it drew blood, but the moment I heard the cry of their wolves everything in me narrowed to a chilling command.

_Run._

It didn’t matter where, I just needed to get away. And once I was fully submerged in the darkness it became the only direction I could go. There was no turning back, no finding some secret escape in the dense forest. I was slow and they had wolves. My flimsy attempts at invisibility wouldn’t get me anywhere, let alone hide my scent. So I knew the moment I hit the ground that if I didn’t get up and _run_ into the abyss that I wouldn’t make it.

So I ran. As fast as I could. Not caring if I fell or stumbled over the shifting sand. My lungs burned and my heart felt like it might pound its way out of my chest. At a certain point I couldn’t even tell if I _was_ breathing anymore. My throat was ragged and constricted with the effort of my exertions. But I pushed myself harder than I ever had before.

There had been a man in the village that Mal and I had been taken to after we lost our real parents. His eyes had been soft and kind, even as his butcher’s apron was stiff with blood. He always had a small treat of elk jerky for any child that visited his shop. Two pieces even for me as I was so small.

One day he was alive, cracking jokes with Ansa as she picked out a chuck of beef for our dinner, the next he was clutching his chest with one hand and hanging on Tomas’ arm with the other. He had been asking us in passing if we had enjoyed the _Kalops_ Ansa had made.

“My wife’s stews are always delicious,” Tomas had said with a laugh. “But made more delicious with your skillful cuts!”

“You are a lucky man to have as lovely bride as Ansa!” the butcher had replied before bending down to me, “And you are a lucky daughter! You are going to be the most sought after maiden in the village with Ansa to guide your upbringing. We just need to put a little more meat on your bones first, eh?” He handed me my customary two pieces of elk jerky with a smile and I took them eagerly.

But his lively smile gave way to a grimace and his warm eyes darkened with pain as he stood up. It all happened so fast. His face reddened to a shade deeper than a fresh cut of lamb and his fingers turned pale with their frantic grip. Tomas caught him as he fell over with a gasping breath, but he was dead before he could even be gently lowered to the ground.

I wondered now if that would be my fate as well. Every beat of my heart was a sharp knife in my chest and I was certain that it would burst at any moment. But there were no solid arms to catch me as I fell and no fear-widened eyes to watch the color collect in my face or drain away from my fingers.

When I finally stopped running it was not by choice. My body had finally reached its limit and my legs gave out from underneath me. I fell face first into the shifting sand and stayed down. I didn’t even have the strength to flip myself over to prevent the intrusion of gritty sand into my mouth.

_What would be the point though_? The blinding fear of the _Drüskelle_ was slowly draining away from my body, only to be replaced with the grim realization of my situation.

I was in _Avgrund_. And not just on its border, I was deep into the abyss. There was nothing here but me, the darkness, and the sand. If I had any energy left, I would have spent it panicking at the oppressive weight of the shadows or the fact that I couldn’t see the pale skin of my hand even if I brought it directly in front of my face.

Instead I just laid there listening to the sounds of my ragged breathing.

~ ~ ~ ~

I didn’t know how much time passed until I finally found the strength to roll onto my back. It could have been a half hour. It could have been a day. I didn’t really have the presence of mind to try and figure it out.

I had thought that Fjerdan winters held unbearable darkness, but they were blazing summer skies compared to _Avgrund_. I could almost understand the name ‘Shadow Fold’ now. This place was layer upon layer of darkness, folded over and compressed infinitely until there was nothing else.

No moon or stars.

Just nothing.

_Nothing but me, the darkness, and the sand._

_Sand…_

_Darkness…_

_Me._

The realization was a tiny smoldering flame in my mind. Difficult to start, but blazing once it caught.

I sat up as fast as my worn out body would let me and held out my palms like _Tiggare av Djel_ , the beggar of god.

_Think of summer._

_Think of bonfires._

_Think of stars and dawn and fireflies._ I willed myself.

_Think of candles on crowns of lingonberries._

A ball of light flickered in my hand weakly and I cried out in a mix of pain and elation. In any other place the light would have been puny, almost impossible to see. But in Avgrund? It was blinding to the point of agony.

I started to laugh, because wasn’t it just the funniest thing? That I could be blinded by both the light and the darkness? My sides ached with a heaving laughter that quickly turned to dry sobs. And when those subsided I was left wondering if it even mattered.

I could make light yes, but it was dim and barely extended a foot away from me. Besides, even if it was brighter what use would it be? I couldn’t turn back, I was sure that the _Drüskelle_ would be lining the edge of the darkness for at least a few days, longer if Mal had told them that it wasn’t actually fire that I summoned.

I sat on the ground for a long time contemplating my options. I had light and by some miracle I still managed to keep my rucksack on, so I still had at least four days of food and water if I really rationed it. But even if I _could_ turn back the way I came, I had completely forgotten which direction that was. I might not have even run in a straight line for all I knew.

I hardly had the energy for it, but I couldn’t stand the darkness one second further so I called the light to me again. It was blinding again at first, but my eyes quickly adjusted to it. It was barely even one low burning candle’s worth of light. But it was my light.

I continued to sit there for a long time, holding my flickering ball of light in my hands and and turning over my dilemma in my mind. I tried to figure out what direction I had come from, but quickly gave up. I could only be certain that I hadn’t fallen from the sky or dug my way out of the earth, after that all the other directions were equally likely.

Another realization kindled in my mind. I may not know where _I_ had come from, but maybe, just maybe, I could tell where the _light_ was coming from.

I had long ago realized that I didn’t produce light, I _called_ on it, collecting it from the sun, the moon, the stars, and even reflections off my surroundings. So if I knew where the light was coming from, then I would know where the sun was in the sky, and then I would know which way north was.

I rose to my feet slowly, my whole body trembling. With excitement, fatigue, or fear I couldn’t tell. However, I quickly pushed aside the thought, there were too many uncertainties right now and I needed to focus on solving the biggest one.

I called on the light stronger than I ever had before. I practically banged on its door demanding its presence. The orb of light grew in my hands and I could hardly believe how large I could make it. It encircled me then stretched well beyond. I furrowed my brow though. That wasn’t the point of this exercise. I reigned in the light and concentrated it in my hands. It was no longer a flickering candle, it was a miniature sun.

Slowly, almost imperceptivity I rotated around. I watched the little sun closely, looking for any signs of brightening or dimming. Sure enough it had a point on the circle where it was brightest and an opposite point where it was darkest.

I could tell where the sun was in the sky even if I couldn’t see it.

A thick wave of pride rushed through me. Maybe I could get out of this mess yet. I would need to wait for a while, track the sun’s rise or decent in my mind to be certain if it signaled east or west, but I could be patient.

A few more hours passed- at least I _thought_ it had to be hours, I was judging everything by my newfound perception of the angle of the sun in the sky- until I was certain of my compass. _Or was it a sundial?_ I shook my head, another uncertainty for a different time. It didn’t matter if it was compass or a sundial or a damned sliced of pickled herring so long as it _worked_. I called on all of the geography I had learned in primary. I had always loved the look of maps and now I loved myself for that. But I also hated myself for it, because now I knew what direction I needed to go.

South.

There was no way around it. For now, I needed to go south. Or really I needed to go southwest. I was loathe to venture into Ravka, but I still couldn’t return to Fjerda, at least not for a few months until things died down. So I would head into the land of murderers and barbarians, make my way towards its shore, and when the time was right, I would board a boat and make my way back to Fjerda.

It wasn’t a solid or fully fleshed out plan. Honestly, it was dubious at best and a suicide attempt at worst. But it was a plan. I angled my body south for now, figuring that there was no point to going southwest until I was absolutely sure I was out of Fjerda.

I had light, direction, a little bit of food and water, and a plan. And really, did I need anything more?

~ ~ ~ ~

It was only a day later when I realized that there was something more that I needed. _Desperately needed_.

There was almost no sound in _Avgrund_ , only the faint scrape of sand running over sand, driven by the breeze. Everything else came from me; the steady thump of my heart, my winded breathing, the sound of my footsteps slogging through the sand.

And yet it took me far too long to long to pick out a new rhythmic sound over my own. It was a repeated whooshing sound. It was the sound of wings.

A very large pair of wings.

There _was_ something more that I needed.

I needed a weapon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayyyyy another chapter! Yay! I've been wanted to keep going with this, but got sidetracked by ~~SitD and SFtOB~~ (okay those acronyms look dumb) _my other fics_. (There, that's better.) Anyways, I hope that you liked it! I'm excited to write the next chapter!
> 
> Kudos and comments feed my soul and increase my typing speed. \\(๑•́ ω •̀๑)/


	4. My Weapon

My light sputtered for a moment then went out, plunging me back into the darkness. Somehow, in the few hours where I held light in my hands, I had forgotten just how consuming and complete the abyss was around me. Now it pressed in and strangled the breath in my lungs.

_Avgrund._ _What monsters do you hold?_

The ragged pulse of a great beast’s wings grew louder until it matched the sound of my own pulse in my ears, then surpassed it. And was it just my imagination, or could I already start to feel the ghost of an agitated breeze on my face?

Volcra. Of all of the stories of things that lurk in the darkness, this had been the one that kept me up at night. I had been too afraid to fall asleep, my nightmares full of endless rows of wicked teeth. They raked across my skin and snapped my bones. I would reach out a hand or a foot, anything to stop my decent into their yawning mouths. But instead of catching my fall, my limbs would be shredded before my very eyes. Like soft cheese pushed over a shiny cowbell grater, I saw myself turn into nothing but long ribbons of flesh.

Ansa had been absolutely furious with Tomas for sharing that particular tale with me. For years I had nighttime terrors, my shrieks sometimes becoming loud enough for the neighbors to hear. On particularly bad nights Mal would sneak over to our house and climb through the bedroom window that I never kept locked. He would slip into my bed, not saying anything, just pulling me into a tight hug until I sobbed no more.

He would be gone by morning, out through the same window by which he entered. Only our mothers knew he did this and every time they scolded us. For what would the town say if they knew? As young as we were, it still just wasn’t proper, not for a boy and a girl of no relation. But I continued not to lock my window and Mal continued to sneak through it.

One night, just before we grew too old for even our mothers not to grow suspicious of the innocent time we spent in the same bed, the terrors stopped. There wasn’t peep to be heard from my bedroom. No telltale footsteps in the snow leading from Mal’s window to mine that needed to be cleared before the other neighbors saw. The shadows lessened under my eyes, if only a little, and suddenly I had some stomach for breakfast where there had been none before.

For when I closed my eyes at night I dreamed about something new. A ballroom made of light itself, where bright stars danced for the Sun. They twirled and glittered and shone behind my eyes. They laughed and held hands and lived happy endings.

My window remained unlatched, but dreams of light were my only nighttime visitors. It was no coincidence that the turn of a Winter solstice had taken away my nightmares, but there was only one other person alive who knew enough to draw the connection.

And he had just thrown me into the abyss.

It had been so long since those nights and even longer since I had last heard of the volcra. The town was small and gossip of my frantic screams had spread far. But gossip like that usually only came from boredom, not malice. And as the tales of my nightly fear spread, with it was the promise to never speak of the monsters that inspired such terror in me. If only to keep our sleepy town just that, sleepy.

Volcra. The word had become almost foreign, faded and made distant over time. But now that I remembered it, there was no turning back. My childhood fear was made real in front of me and it was coming closer and closer.

The rhythmic gusts of air were undeniable now as they lifted my hair around my head. And the _smell_. I had never thought to include their smell in my nightmares. Now I worried that it would all I would ever smell. It was acridly sweet, the burning stench of things decayed. I couldn’t tell if it was the volcra itself or something it had killed.

It was moving closer and closer to me as I stood as still as I could. I tried not to make any sounds, I tried not to breath. That was my mistake.

I could feel the rush of air as it swooped directly for me and I suddenly knew the obvious. The volcra lived in the abyss. It could see me or, if it was truly blind, it could sense me by some kind of sound or vibration. And I had just stood still, waiting like a roasted fowl on a platter for it to come for me.

I ducked, crying out as sharp claws scraped along my shoulder. I decided then, that if I was going to die I wanted to at least see the true form of my nightmares.

Light bloomed around me, fragile and thin, but enough to see the great yawning stretch of a mouth coming towards me. It wasn’t the endless tube of teeth that I had expected, but there were teeth enough. I hoped that it would take me in one bite, I didn’t want to know the feeling of being chewed on.

The abomination opened its mouth impossibly wide as it bore down on me. Its breath was hot, like the opening of a woodstove door, but instead of the delicate almond scent of Toscakaka I was greeted with more eye-watering rot.

However, at the last possible moment, the creature stopped short with a horrible shriek. It’s giant leathery wings churned in place, flinging sand into the air.

My eyes went wide and in my surprise the light flickered. The volcra lunged then fell back then lunged and fell back. It was like a giant moth fluttering around a flame, trying to get close but drawing back once it felt the heat of the fire.

I put everything into my light. I let it grow bright and strong around me. It was like a physical shield pushing the volcra away from me. It beat it wings against the edges of the bubble of light. It almost seemed to crawl along the surface of it, testing to find some kind of weakness.

It wouldn’t find any.

I pushed the light brighter and hotter until finally the creature gave a last blood curdling scream and flew away.

“Y-y-yeah! You run away!” I stuttered out a shout after it. I wanted to shout more, to yell all sorts of insults after it, but at the same time I had a sudden irrational fear that it would understand me and be offended enough to come back for more.

My heart continued to pound painfully in my chest and there was a cold sweat on my brow, but I managed to get myself to continue walking.

I pulled the light closer to me, trying my best to light my path while also pointing myself by the direction of a sun I could only feel, but whenever I heard the sound of wings I let my light flare out around me. That seemed to keep away any more of the beasts.

It seemed that I had found my weapon.

~ ~ ~ ~

I had no idea how long I had been in Avgrund. Progress was slow moving and I was stretching the small canteen of water and the stale remains of a loaf of bread far too thin. I chewed on my last pieces of boar jerky for hours until they turned into a disgusting paste and almost completely dissolved in my mouth.

I was so tired, so very tired. I stumbled and sagged as I trudged across the endless sand. One of my arms hung limply at my side, my body’s way of avoiding the pain of my clawed shoulder. But at the same time I felt energized like I never had before. I had no mirror, but I could tell that my cheeks were flushed. I was so close to death, so close to being consumed by the abyss, yet I had never felt further from death’s door.

I had always known that using my power made me feel good, if only for a short period of time. It warmed my skin, fueled my appetite, and brought a flush to my pasty skin or a laugh to my thin lips. But the same could be said, _had been said_ , about the things that bad Fjerdan girls did with boys behind the snow drifts.

Things that I had wanted to do with Mal, things we had almost done but hadn’t. Because he was an honorable Fjerdan boy with a future pointed towards the _Drüskelle_ and deep down, no matter how hard he had tried to pretend otherwise, I would always be the monster that he hunted. I was bad from my birth, never destined to be a good Fjerdan girl. I wanted things I shouldn’t, had things I shouldn’t. My future only pointed towards a fiery death.

Still, even though I knew it was wrong, I couldn’t help but indulge in those short periods of pleasure were I used my power in little bursts. I almost looked forward to the frantic build of it against my skin, pushing so hard that I was afraid it would burst from all my pores if I didn’t do _something_ with it. _Anything_.

It was how I had even come to learn my little trick of invisibility. A small, purposeful release. Like lifting the lid from a boiling pot just before it boiled over. As discreetly as I could I would try and make things vanish. Just little things, a pebble on the road, the flutter of a leaf on the wind, me.

The things that people tend not to see anyways.

It was still dangerous though. What if somebody noticed anyways? What if I somehow lost control and created light where I only meant to divert it? So I tried my best not to use my powers. I shoved my personal monster deep down inside of me, feeding it little bites only when it threatened to consume me whole.

The way I felt now, using my power with abandon, made me fear for whatever future I might have. For how could I go back to feeding the great beast inside me table scraps, now that it knew the taste of a feast?

In the darkness of _Avgrund_ there was no one here to persecute my sins. I was finally able to use my power as much as I wanted. So it buzzed under my skin, intoxicating. It kept me moving forward when my water and food ran out and when my legs became numb. In that great abyss my power became the only thing I was.

And it was glorious.

These were the thoughts that my brain wound around as I walked. I faded in and out of sense, chasing conclusions were there were none. I was so consumed by this that I didn’t even notice the river until I was ankle deep in it and then I was face down in it.

My parched body led the way before my power-drunk mind knew what was happening. I gulped down deep draughts of water not caring that some of it went down the wrong direction causing me to cough and retch.

Once I finally had my fill I lay down in the water, my body naturally settling itself into the damp sand. I had been lucky enough to stumble into a very shallow curve of what was overall a very large river. I took a bath of sorts, letting the current do my washing for me. I reasoned that it would clean the wound in my shoulder.

I spent a long time like that, my light clinging just barely to my skin as the water flowed over me. The sound of the river was deafening and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hear the sound of wings approaching, but I was just so tired that I didn’t care anymore.

It was foolish of me, absolutely idiotic, but I was far beyond rational thought by that point. I hadn’t slept in days, or even stopped to rest, too afraid of my light going out. So I just let go and hoped that the river would drown out my sounds from the volcra as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, finally another chapter. I promise that I haven't fully deserted any of my fics, I've just been focused on Shot in the Dark. But I found that I needed a break from that, so you get this instead! *^-^*;
> 
> I have HUGE plans for this fic, so just bear with me okay? I'm so excited for the chapter after next, you don't even kNOW! :P
> 
> Anyways, kudos and comments keep me going and make me smile! <3 Thank you so much for reading!


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